In the art and joy of singing together our people seem to have retrograded. Perhaps the dominant influences at the beginning were not favorable to this art. Whatever love we had for music was cherished, however, in the church of New England, but the advent of the soloist in the choir loft has put a quietus upon the musical expression in the pew. Harriet Beecher Stowe tells us how those old billowy fuguing tunes used to be sung, with what gusto the men and women, bass, counter, soprano, and tenor, trained in that national institution, the singing school, would chase the melody around, racing after one another, each singing a different set of words, until at length by some inexplicable magic they would all come together again and sail smoothly out into a rolling sea of song. To her those tunes, as she remembered them from her childhood, were like the ocean aroused by stormy winds, when deep calleth to deep in tempestuous confusion, out of which at last is evolved union and harmony.
It is a pity that such musical impulse as this should be allowed to go to waste. And it is not as if the primitive musical quality were extinguished in us, but the impulse remains submerged unless something brings it out. Professor Peter Lutkin of Northwestern University, head of a school of music that constantly draws students from the Western States, says that you cannot give musical culture to an acre of the Western land without having music talent spring there.
We should follow the example of little Wales, that sturdy sister in the confederation of the British Isles. How wonderful is the singing of the Welsh when they come together in their great national Eisteddfod! There they have a national contest in which many singing societies join, and a prize is given to the victorious one. How do we account for this great interest in singing? Why, there is a Choral Society in every village of Wales. Between village and village, between city and city, there are competitive tests, and this annual event is the outcome of all the smaller ones, the crowning engagement for the highest honors. How much must this mean to the people of the villages! What a comfort to the isolated ones! For twelve miles about any village or town center the people come walking in every Sunday evening, to attend rehearsals for practise in sacred music, hymns and chorals being their mainstay. In northern England we find the same musical feeling, and in Italy. Why these special parts of the world should move in this direction, who can tell? It is enough to know that those rougher, more hilly, and more secluded regions do this service for the people. They make them feel the impulse and the necessity for song.